Diversified Channels of Knowledge Exchange in European Universities: Major Parameters of University-Enterprise Partnerships (Chapter 7)

Abstract

The present chapter focuses on knowledge exchange in European universities as viewed through the lenses of university-enterprise partnerships. It presents research findings of a large-scale comparative European research project funded by the European Commission which focused on university-enterprise partnerships in six European countries: Germany, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Poland. The analysis of empirical material on partnerships is performed at three distinct levels: six national case studies, eighteen institutional case studies, and ten partnership case studies, with different units of analysis: countries, individual academic institutions, and individual institutional partnerships. The structure of the chapter is as follows. Introductory section, the analytical framework, then the chapter explores the following three major partnership parameters: in section three, the role of individuals academics/ administrators) in establishing and running successful partnerships; in section four, the role of public authorities, public subsidies and private donations in operations of successful partnerships; and in section five, the staff mobility between public and private sectors as part of established partnerships. In section six, the chapter presents its research findings in a wider context of academic norms, values and attitudes towards the commercialization of research and technology transfer analyzed on the basis of a recent (2011) large-scale quantitative comparative European research on the academic profession in eleven countries (ESF-funded EUROAC, “Academic Profession in Europe”). Section seven presents tentative conclusions. In general, research findings are linked to current discussions in the knowledge transfer and science policy literatures on the growing role of knowledge exchange and university-industry linkages in the knowledge economy, with particular emphasis on the role of individual vs. institutional characteristics in successful university-industry collaborations, the role of the public/private mix in funding and governance modes in partnerships, and the relative separation of university and business cultures in European universities as factors inhibiting the inter-sectoral mobility.